It would rather make $135,000 a year to pay for lot maintenance. Meanwhile, over 10 years, the city aims to bankroll $480,000 to build a parking garage.

Under the proposal, a token-free lot will be kept on the periphery of each core — Beverly Street in Galt, Argyle Street in Preston and St. James Church in Hespeler.

Otherwise, you’ll have to pay to use a city space or lot.

A buck an hour gets you a first-class spot on the street or in a lot, and $5 a day is top rate. Fifty cents an hour gets you a slab of asphalt on a side street or secondary lot, and $2.50 is the maximum daily rate.

“The amount we’re charging, I don’t think is a big number,” Galt Coun. Gary Price said. “Go to the hospital, it costs you. Go across the streets to the clinics, it costs you. Go to Kitchener, Guelph — any of those places — and you’re paying a lot more than what we’re charging.”

The pay-parking plan was approved three years ago by council. But there was no money to start it up.

This year, the Region of Waterloo made it all possible. It’ll pay Cambridge $1 million a year for 10 years under the terms of the Light Rail Transit plan, which sees Cambridge make due with rapid buses. So if you end up paying for downtown parking next May, note that the region’s “gift” brought a platoon of pay-and-display machines to Cambridge.

And, in the end, pay parking may be bad for downtown business.

“It’s a deterrent,” Hespeler Coun. Rick Cowsill said.

“The merchants, God bless them, are competing with the malls every day.”